Crowdfunding PR Rolls Out Title III Equity Crowdfunding 2-Month Prep-Work Programs to Launch More Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns

The crowdfunding prep work program helps entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses amass a large crowd of followers on social media and utilizes PR to generate hundreds of articles on leading newspapers, TV/radio stations, trade publications and leading blogs

By Robert Hoskins

Austin, Texas (May 16, 2016) – Want to learn how to launch a successful Title III crowdfunding campaign on one of top 100 equity crowdfunding sites? To help crowdfunders achieve this elusive goal, Crowdfunding PR (http://crowdfundingPR.wordpress.com) announced a special two-month Crowdfunding Prep Work Program that will significantly improve a crowdfunding campaign’s success rate by amplifying its founder’s social media profiles and by utilizing an effective crowdfunding PR campaign to generate hundreds of stories in the electronic news media prior to the crowdfunding campaign’s launch.

How to Plan a Successful Crowdfunding PR Campaigns, a Step-by-Step Process

One of the biggest challenges that most crowdfunding campaigns face are weak social media credentials and the lack of a large group of social media followers that are needed to support crowdfunding campaigns with donations and/or investments. Building strong, professional Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles and amassing the largest possible group of followers on social media networks is crucial to conducting a successful crowdfunding campaign.

The second biggest task is generating stories on electronic news media outlets and blogs prior to launching a crowdfunding campaign. Not only can a well-orchestrated crowdfunding PR campaign generate hundreds of free, positive trade press articles to support the fundraising effort, but the same targeted, search engine optimized press releases will continue to drive new investors, potential customers and sales/distribution partners to the business long after the crowdfunding campaign ends.

“What many entrepreneurs and startups need to recognize is how important social media is in the world of crowdfunding,” said Robert Hoskins, Crowdfunding PR’s Director of Crowdfunding Campaigns. “The very first thing that an investor/donor does when they read through a crowdfunding profile they like is to look up the company and its team members on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to check out their credentials. Having a strong resume on LinkedIn, lots of likes on Facebook and an army of followers on Twitter is crucial to determining the strength of the team and the likelihood that they have the tenacity and skill set to deliver on their crowdfunding campaign’s promises.”

“Next, most investors/donors will do a Google search to see what they can find online for both the company and its team members,” Hoskins continued. “With a two-month crowdfunding prep-work campaign there will be several pages of search engine results that link to the client’s website pages, their social media posts/profiles and the crowdfunding campaign’s prep pages that will point to their live fundraising campaign on Kickstarter.com, Indiegogo.com, GoFundMe.com or any of the other 2016 Top 100 Global Crowdfunding sites.”

If you would like to speak with a crowdfunding PR, social media and/or marketing expert regarding your crowdfunding campaign please call Robert Hoskins at (512) 627-6622 or fill out the contact form at: https://crowdfundingpr.wordpress.com/about-crowdfunding-pr-campaigns/ to setup a telephone consultation.

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(512) 627-6622
@Crowdfunding_PR

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Mr. Robert Hoskins is a seasoned marketing veteran with a proven track record of helping entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses as well as Fortune 500 corporations launch successful marketing communications campaigns to gain market traction for a wide variety of products and services.

Mr. Hoskins is one of the crowdfunding industry’s foremost crowdfunding advocates and has amassed a huge social media following that is dedicated to supporting donation-, rewards- and equity-based crowdfunding campaigns. Due to the overwhelming demand from the general public for crowdfunding information, he empowers entrepreneurs with some of the internet’s most affordable ($20) online crowdfunding training classes, which provide insight to startups around the world on a 24 x 7 basis.

Mr. Hoskins adamantly believes that the crowdfunding industry will empower everyone in the United States to rediscover the possibility of living the American dream with a little hard work, a great business idea and the dedication to researching, planning and launching a well-thought-out crowdfunding campaign. He consults on a regular basis with crowdfunding campaign managers as well as crowdfunding sites, portals and platforms to deliver successful crowdfunding marketing campaigns.

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SEC’s Proposed Amendments to Approve Nationwide Intrastate Crowdfunding and Raise Limit to $5 Million for Small Business

SEC’s Proposed Amendments to Rule 147 and 504 to Facilitate New Intrastate Crowdfunding and the Sale of Regional Securities Offerings

SEC Staff Proposes Amendments to Securities Rules 147 and Reg. D. 504

 By Robert Hoskins

 SEC’s Proposed Actions for Title III Crowdfunding

The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering whether to propose amendments to Securities Act Rule 147 and Rule 504 of Regulation D.  The proposed amendments would be part of the Commission’s efforts to assist smaller companies with capital formation consistent with its investor protection mission.

Proposed Title III Crowdfunding Amendments

Proposed Amendments to Rule 147

The proposed amendments would modernize Rule 147 to permit companies to raise money from investors within their state without concurrently registering the offers and sales at the federal level.  The proposed amendments to Rule 147 would, among other things:

• Eliminate the restriction on offers, while continuing to require that sales be made only to residents of the issuer’s state or territory.
• Refine what it means to be an intrastate offering and ease some of the issuer eligibility requirements in the current rule.
• Limit the availability of the exemption to offerings that are registered in-state or conducted under an exemption from state law registration that limits the amount of securities an issuer may sell to no more than $5 million in a 12-month period and imposes an investment limitation on investors.

Proposed Amendments to Rule 504

The proposed amendments to Rule 504 of Regulation D would increase the aggregate amount of securities that may be offered and sold under Rule 504 in any 12-month period from $1 million to $5 million and disqualify certain bad actors from participation in Rule 504 offerings.  The proposed rules would facilitate capital formation and increase investor protection in such offerings.

 

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What is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding sites and platforms are a great way for Universities and Colleges to generate extra revenue and market their school’s brand name on a global basis

By Robert Hoskins

What is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is not a new concept. It has been used for thousands of years to collect small sums of money from the masses to pay for some of the most well known works in the world such as the Statue of Liberty.

The JOBS Act made it legal to use e-commerce sites to build crowdfunding profiles to collect money online from investors and utilize general solicitation  (advertising/marketing/PR) to raise money from the masses for the first time in 80 years. Funding that can be used provide seed investment capital to startups and help existing businesses expand their operations.

What States Have Legalized Equity Crowdfunding?

At the federal level, the final Title III equity crowdfunding rules guidelines have been stalled by the SEC, but at the state level Texas, Michigan, Georgia and 13 other states have passed Intrastate Crowdfunding Exemption rules that allow startups and businesses to raise money by selling equity shares online to raise seed investment capital. Other large states including California, Illinois, and Pennsylvania have proposed legislation, which is working its way through the legislative process.

Map of U.S. States that have approved Intrastate Equity Crowdfunding Exemptions

                                                Source: CrowdfundingLegalHub.com

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What is an Intrastate Equity Crowdfunding Exemption?

Due to the SEC’s Refusal to Pass Title III Crowdfunding Guidelines, which are Three Years Overdue, 31 States Have Passed or Plan to Pass Their Own Intrastate Equity Crowdfunding Exemptions

By Robert Hoskins

Intrastate Crowdfunding Exemptions

List of States with Approved Equity Crowdfunding Exemptions:

The good news is that there are currently 15 states, including Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin  that have approved Intrastate Crowdfunding Exemptions. This represents 33% of the United States population or  106.3 million people.

List of States with Pending Equity Crowdfunding Exemptions:

Another 16 states including Alaska, Arizona (not reflected on map), Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia that have pending legislation.  This represents 38% of the United States population or 112.4 million people.

List of States Who are Asleep at the Wheel:

Apparently Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming are either asleep at the wheel or do not have internet access. This represents 19.7% of the United States population or 63.6 million people.

List of States that have Rejected Equity Crowdfunding Exemptions:

Only Florida and North Carolina have decided not to help small business get access to investment capital. This represents 9% of the United States populations or 29.8 million people.

100% of Colleges and Universities Can Solicit Accredited Investors

This means that 100% of colleges and universities in the United States can solicit accredited investors nationwide using an equity crowdfunding platform to fund their incubator and accelerator programs.

On a state level, 33% can solicit non-accredited investors now with another 38% hopefully coming online by the end of 2015. If that happens equity crowdfunding will be legal in 31 states where 71% of all Americans live.

      Source: CrowdfundingLegalHub.com

 What are Non-Accredited Investors?

In states where an Intrastate Crowdfunding Exemption has been approved by the state securities board or the state legislature, anyone 18 years or older who lives in the same state can invest in local school accelerator’s equity crowdfunding opportunities regardless of income or assets.

This means that even schools in rural areas with zero funding to support startups companies or incubator or accelerator programs can setup an equity crowdfunding sites and begin soliciting angel and accredited investors all over the United States.

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Want to launch an equity crowdfunding site in your state?

Please fill out this form to get started:

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Positive Letters Needed to Support the SEC’s Ability to Crowdfunding Pass Title III Guidelines for Small Business

The SEC Claims that It Does Not Have Sufficient Positive Industry Support to Implement Title III Crowdfunding. Let’s Change that Today by Sending in 10,000 Letters and Tweets from American Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses that Want Access to Small Business VC

By Robert Hoskins

Washington, D.C. – I’d like to start off by saying “Hats off” to Justin Ryan and Terell Jones for putting on an awesome Kickercon crowdfunding event in Houston last month. It was, by far, the best crowdfunding conference we have attended to date! All of crowdfunding subject matter experts were there, but this conference did a much better job than most because they addressed where the crowdfunding industry is headed instead of just rehashing the old facts and figures of the JOBS Act.

There were numerous tracks on the Texas Intrastate Crowdfunding Exemption, an excellent Crowdfunding Boot Camp put on by InventIt2Day’s Conley Giles, and great panel discussions on the up and coming real estate crowdfunding industry, but the most important event by far was a presentation by Ron Miller, who has been meeting with numerous officials the SEC in an attempt to try and understand the SEC’s hesitation to implement Title III crowdfunding rules, which are now way overdue.

 

Please Retweet – We support Title III Crowdfunding to Start Small Businesses!

 

Mr. Miller gave a convincing presentation based on comments from SEC Commissioners and many of its staff members.  The SEC is basically saying that in 560+ pages of public comments, the negative comments outweigh the positive comments supporting the implementation and communicated that if they had a lot more positive support from Americans then they would be more motivated to pass the final guidelines.

In the Crowdfunding Industry we pride ourselves on utilizing the crowd to accomplish many objectives such as raising money for crowdfunding campaigns and helping crowdfunding platforms police potential equity investment deals.

Unlike many established industries, members of the crowdfunding industry have very advanced social media capabilities and very large networks of contacts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and other important social media networks. One of Mr. Miller’s main points was that the crowdfunding industry should begin working together to leverage these social media networks to drum more support.

During the event’s Q&A session, with an after show audience of almost 500 crowdfunding enthusiasts, several comments suggested developing a Title III Crowdfunding Support Form Letter and providing the contact information on where to mail or email these positive Title III Crowdfunding support letters.  Others suggested creating HeadTalker or ThunderClap campaigns.

In addition, the audience and the event hosts suggested contacting your U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. State Senators to let them know that support for Title III Crowdfunding Rules will be an important factor when considering who to vote for this fall.

Please show the SEC your overwhelming support for Title III Crowdfunding and let them know that the general public, entrepreneurs and small businesses are 100% behind creating a Title III equity crowdfunding industry in the United States. Please download a copy of this Form Letter, add your contact information and then send it the SEC. It will take less than 5 minutes, but can make a difference for the crowdfunding industry.

Please repost, retweet and reblog this story.  All copyrights are waived on both the text and the image. Please retweet and republish at will!

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Feel free to mention these handles in your tweets:

• @SEC_News
• @SEC_Investor_Ed 
• @SEC_Enforcement 
• @SEC_Chuck

 

How to Make Money and Create Jobs by Teaching Crowdfunding Training Classes in Your City, State or Country

Did you know that 50% of the 48 contiguous United States don’t have one single crowdfunding training class? That means anyone with a marketing degree can make $49 to $399 per student teaching people how to launch crowdfunding campaigns

By Robert Hoskins

Austin, Texas – One thing that amazes me about the crowdfunding industry is the lack of training programs or community outreach programs that are available on a nationwide basis.  There are plenty of crowdfunding professionals that offer training programs, boot camps and workshops in major metropolitan areas, but what about cities with a population of less than 500,000 people?

Teach a Crowdfunding Training Class in Your City or State to Help Small Businesses to Create New Jobs

In most cases, cities with a population of 100,000 or more people usually have a Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development Council, SBA, SBDC,  and/or SCORE  offices that are setup specifically to help entrepreneurs and startups write business plans and find venture capital.

What surprises me the most about these organizations is that they don’t offer one single local crowdfunding training class on how to use crowdfunding  campaigns to raise money to get small businesses off the ground. Why is that?

There so many smart people out there that already teach business planning, business development, finance, marketing, etc.  Why not include a crowdfunding training class to teach entrepreneurs how to take advantage of the growing $10 billion crowdfunding industry?

Crowdfunding training classes, boot camps and workshops are charging anywhere from $49 for online classes to $399 for onsite conference training programs? Why not roll out these revenue generating programs to rural  America? Anyone familiar with the co-op business model should be able to quickly understand the concept of working with a whole community to share the cost of launching new businesses together.

 Anyone with a marketing background or public speaking experience should be able to read through the standard crowdfunding educational training program and with a little practice could teach millions of Americans how to launch successful crowdfunding campaigns to raise money to start new businesses.

To get a sense of the void of crowdfunding training classes available throughout the United States, please click on the state links below to see how many states have only one or zero crowdfunding training programs:

United States Crowdfunding Training Programs:

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri

Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

American Territories:

• American Samoa
• Guam
• Puerto Rico
• Virgin Islands

Second Equity Crowdfunding Investing Portal, PennStarter, Begins Advertising Private Placements Under the JOBS Act

PennStarter carves out niche in the equity funding world, connecting qualified investors to early-stage public and private companies

By Robert Hoskins

PennStarter, based in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, states that the 2012 JOBS Act began allowing for certain equity funding raises to be advertised through exemption Regulation D, Rule 506(c) in September, 2013. The PennStarter portal is focused on early-stage public and private companies.

PennStarter Equity Crowdfunding Platform and Broker Dealer

While many broker-dealers and issuers have been reluctant to utilize advertising as they must verify the accreditation of their investors when relying on this exemption, the PennStarter portal was designed to make the investment process both open and transparent, while ensuring strict compliance.

Company President Ron Nicklas states, “We have worked hard to put procedures in place to make the process of verifying accreditation as simple for investors as possible. For investors interested in gaining access to quality deals, we believe that the PennStarter platform offers a unique opportunity to connect with early-stage companies.”

PennStarter has carved a niche in the equity funding world, connecting qualified investors to early-stage public and private companies. For companies and their investors, PennStarter offers the security of a FINRA/SIPC member broker-dealer, and thorough due diligence is done prior to listing.

For private companies, PennStarter is uniquely positioned to help properly position them to become publically traded, should they choose to do so. Since one of the typical challenges of investing in private placements is the lack of an exit strategy, this approach has become attractive to investors.

PennStarter is currently working with two companies conducting capital raises utilizing the 506(c) exemption, and which are available only to accredited investors.

1. Touchpoint Metrics: A fully reporting, early-stage company quoted on the OTCBB under the symbol TPOI. Touchpoint Metrics is a SaaS-based customer experience software and services company working with large, medium and small enterprises to measure and improve the experiences they deliver to their customers.
2. Funding Wonder: An online lending platform, which blends finance with social networking to provide loans to small businesses. Funding Wonder plans on offering its lending opportunities to both accredited and non-accredited investors utilizing state and federally regulated Crowdfunding after its implementation.

PennStarter is a division of Pennaluna & Company and was launched in late 2013. Pennaluna & Company is a full service stockbroker focused primarily on the mining, metals and Canadian markets since 1926 and many PennStarter opportunities reflect that niche.

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